I walk into our conference room and the visiting presenting manager, salesman and sales engineer were waiting there to give us their “dog and pony” sales presentation in hopes of my organization partnering with them. I know all of presenters from a previous business life. All very professional and successful in their own right. What happened next was incredibly short sighted on their part however. Below are my 5 takeaways from this experience.
Nothing was working! The first month as their sales manager I found myself watching our sales numbers take a dive right before my eyes in the current tough economy. My initial knee-jerk reaction was to give bigger discounts. That didn’t work. I changed direction with focusing on the “perfect solution” sale followed by strong closing tactics. It was important to capitalize on the few opportunities we were getting. That didn’t work either. If anything these changes were making things worse.
In an effort to market my new services business I have embraced digital marketing in a big way. Selling services using social media venues, websites, blog posts, email campaigns and more I am connecting with tens of thousands regularly. I have made some tremendous progress with these endeavors. I have also come to realize that it still takes a call (or two or three) to make a sale. Why is that?
I am constantly reminded that it is better to give than receive. This concept works well in so many facets of our lives. What about our business and sales practices? We all too often hold pertinent information close to the vest and not share openly. What if sharing opened doors to multiple other opportunities that we weren’t aware of? That’s where successful sales networking plays a big part.